Haunting Hawkesbury Tour
Windsor NSW

Windsor is a small, quiet suburb on the outskirts of Sydney. One of the oldest parts of the city, it was settled in the late 1800's mostly by free settlers, ticket of leave convicts, soldiers and native Aboriginals. The rich soils of the Hawkesbury river made this, and surrounding areas an ideal place for crops.

When booking for this tour I wondered whether I had been there before, deciding that no, I'd never ventured that way. However upon approaching I remembered the dark roads and dimly lit streets.

This tour went by really quickly, starting at 7pm and finishing up at 9pm. We started outside the information centre and museum, where everyone was greeted by John Miller & his quiet wife Beryl who, as our ghost-hosts for the evening, took the group around a small portion of the dark, but busy suburb (which reminds me of of Byron Bay at night).

The museum/tourist information centre was small and moving around in a group of 30 people was quite challenging. Most of this building had a very claustrophobic feel and for me (as much of the tour) didn't really have a ghostly atmosphere at all (to me anyway).

After leaving the museum we walked through the streets of Windsor listening to a few tales told by John. One of the most interesting places on the tour was the Green Hills Burial Ground which is evidently the oldest burial ground in the Hawkesbury region, where hundreds of convicts and towns people were buried on this field without headstones. The total number of people in this 'field' is not known.

One thing that really put the tour down (no fault of the tour of course) was the locals driving past, and in the main part of town making stupid comments (wooooo!) and noises as we passed by.

Also, the constant feeling of being chaperoned by our hosts, who wouldn't let anyone linger (which of course is what people want to do when trying to take photos of places without a crowd of people in the way). Although I guess it's hard work trying to move on a tour group to keep up with a schedule, I couldn't help but feel that we were being pushed on quickly from site to site.

The last stop on the tour was the infamous Macquarie Arms Hotel which John reports as the oldest functioning hotel in Australia (of which I've heard that there is speculation that another hotel holds this title - sorry I cant remember the name at this point! - as the Macquarie Arms was a private residence for 20 years).


The hotel, like many others in Australia has a lot of character and more intriguing yet is the smuggler's tunnels underneath which we saw after climbing down the rickety (and I mean rickety!) spiralling staircase.

One of the hotel workers was questioned by an enquiring tour-member and he said he frequently sees "flashes" out of the corners of his eyes, and when going downstairs to the cellars to get more supplies heard a sound which he describe was rather like windchimes. He also said other staff hear the bottles tinkling together when walking down the staircase (its so small!) and (surprising enough) that not many of the staff like going down on their own!

One word that came to mind after the tour finished (and a few other people agreed whole heartily) was that the tour was more "historical" than anything.

I wouldn't really recommend this tour to any die-hard ghost hunters, you'd gain as much knowledge about Windsor going to the local library (who are very helpful by the way!) and then walking around the place by yourself, but if you're looking for a "spooky" fun night out with a bunch of mates, this tour is great!

Till the next tour....

Kelster.

(Above) The only Spirits I saw all night......